The best of times
by TheMidnightDesire
Summary: "Dad, what happened to Uncle Sherlock?" - Drabble, angst


**Disclaimer: **I do not own any of the characters and I am having no profit with any of this work.

**Universe: **BBC Sherlock

**Timeline**: Nearly eight years after _His last vow_.

**Categories**: Angst, drabble, one-shot.

**I am Brazilian and this is not my first story in English, but I expect mistakes and so should you. Please feel free to point out where I may have gone wrong, but be aware of the situation from the start.**

**Notes: **

I am hurt. Season 3 hurt me. And when I am hurt, like a wounded wolf, I will bite.

Jokes aside, writing angst in these situations is just my way to vent, even though I suffer enormously while doing it. I'm not saying this short drabble will be able to make you cry (I am aware of the quality and the amount of cliches in it), but don't go on with the reading if you don't want it to happen or if you don't like the feels. Again, as I said, I did this purely for my relief, so I can go on with my other stories - but I also felt like sharing, so I really hope someone can enjoy it despite everything.

Midnight kisses XX

* * *

**The best of times**

It was a beautiful day.

The breeze was blowing slightly cold in that bronze-colored autumn, just enough to keep that afternoon pleasant in beneath that outrageous blue sky and those blinding sunrays. His daughter was sitting on the green grass, in front of him. There were toys in her hands, something not so colorful; something plastic, something that John could only identify as _something_. He used to love watching it; loved playing with her, too. But, today, he couldn't even tell what she was playing with. Everything was so blurred that he would need to grab the edges of the scene not to let it slip away.

His eyes were dry; so was his throat and perhaps even his heart. He was sitting in that bench for God knows how long.

_It is not fair, you know._

John was, however, the last person in the world to know what fairness is.

It was a beautiful day.

How dare it.

If he were paying attention, he'd have seen that his daughter wasn't even playing. There was no way she could have any fun, and her small hands were just pointlessly manipulating the plastic toys with no purpose whatsoever.

The suburbs. The garden. Sunday. That quiet, despicable beauty of the houses. The birds. The bikes. The thrill of anything, the pump of adrenalin, echoing so far away from him that it could have never actually happened.

But it did happened.

The best of times, Sherlock had said.

When John saw the little girl in front of him giving up of the toys and standing up, his thoughts were disturbed; but he couldn't even define what she had interrupted. He could've been lost inside himself and he would never know. There weren't words for it, because he couldn't even tell what he was feeling.

She approached and held his hands - they were dry, too.

"Dad, what happened to Uncle Sherlock?" That golden-haired girl, so bright and effulgent in her tiny body structure, burdened with an innocent, but intense gloom shadowing her seven-year-old eyes. Her lips were a line, pressed against each other.

_I wasn't there for him._

John didn't want her to go through this, but he also could not try to spare her. She knew exactly what was going on.

"You know, sweetheart…" He has always been the worst with words, and all the years that passed have not changed it enough. "Sometimes, the people we love…"

"I know he's dead. Was he murdered?"

He nearly laughed, but that strangled chuckle came out parched and scratching. He caressed the curls in her blond hair, barely feeling his own fingers.

"You've spent too much time with him_." _The smile he needed to give warmed his heart and ripped his face off.

John wished hard never needing to see that happening again. He wished it to everything holy he never sacralized, to every God he had never believed in. It was too early; Sherlock lived too fast.

_And he didn't even call me this time._

It was curious how looking at his real grave for the very first time felt like a _déjà vu_ for John. Was it the last time that he would mourn? Would Sherlock remain dead, as ordinary human beings do?

_It's not fair, what you did. Now I'll look into the eyes of every waiter in every restaurant, just to ensure myself it's not you. I'll hope forever that you will come back disguised into my life once again._

There wouldn't be a single moment in his life where he wouldn't look at the door and expect, even if only for one second, that the dark-haired detective in a coat would burst through the door.

With sadness glimmering her blue eyes, his daughter stepped forward and hugged him tight.

"Will you find out who did it?" her mouth against his jumper muffled the question.

John swallowed hard.

"Yes, I will."

The suburbs and all. The whole scene they were living; change it in a few deep details and it could have been that the detective was just back to Sussex. If he were, John's life there would be the same, most of the time. They never actually abandoned what they used to do together, but time was passing. The addiction to danger needed to be dealt with. They were aging, John had a life to make and a kid to raise. In this behalf, some things needed to be left behind.

But, some days in between the routine, Sherlock would come by. Not so dark-haired, though. The last time they saw each other, there were gray hairs in his head. He would show up and show off, like the hurricane he was, just to mess everything up and to make them all hear how loud it could be the sound of their own heartbeats. He would just be Sherlock and make everyone stop taking the blood pumping through their veins for granted; he'd make them feel it was a privilege.

Sherlock was always invincible in John's eyes. Each day, more and more. Each time. Each tear. Each shot, each drop of blood and each heartbeat.

Then, he took Sherlock for granted, too. He was sure that they would see each other until that grey hairs took over his head. Even though he married and got a life of his own, even though they ended up so apart from each other, there was always a part of John sure that they would grow old together.

"Will you play Deductions with me, from now on?"

The little girl's question ached deep inside John's chest and reverberated inside his dry heart like the vibration of a requiem.

_Can I ask that again, Sherlock? Can I beg you not to be dead one more time? _

But miracles don't happen twice.

"I surely will, my dear." He hugged her back and took a deep breath; the autumn breeze felt like an east wind coming. "I won't ever let it go away."

This time, Sherlock wasn't able to solve the case.

_And I wasn't able to save the life._


End file.
